


£10.83

by TeaCub90



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Comfort, Domestic, Fluff, Gen, Hugs, One Shot, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem, Sherlock Holmes Has Feelings, Soft John Watson, little bit of maths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23085586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TeaCub90/pseuds/TeaCub90
Summary: A walk in the sun would be good.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes & John Watson
Kudos: 30





	£10.83

**Author's Note:**

> This was written in a single evening in an attempt to shake me out of my doldrums. Unbeta'ed; all mistakes are mine.

* * *

‘Here,’ Sherlock thrusts a cheque into John’s hands as he saunters into the living-room to replace his violin by the stand. John blinks, completely wrong-footed and does a truly comedic double-take, between best mate and random monetary means, before taking the initiative and focusing on the small slip of monied paper in his hands, homing in on the amount, written above the all-too-familiar signature: £10.83.

‘What’s this for?’ he asks, slightly nervously; more nervous than he would like to admit. ‘Sherlock?’ Is this for services rendered? Is he being paid for something – for his doctor’s services, cheaply so? Is he owed money for groceries? Or is this Sherlock having some joke with him – teasing him somehow? Does the amount mean something, some vital date hidden in the clues that John’s forgotten, or needs to know? Is this for a case?

‘Told you I’d get you a refund,’ Sherlock tosses lazily over his shoulder. John blinks – _thinks –_ remembers.

Mycroft’s manor, garish paintings on the walls, Sherlock trotting merrily down the stairs, proud and handsome in his deerstalker. John, feeling far more himself than he had in weeks, able to riff with him about the fake therapist being his sister (after he’d been shot, after Sherlock had come to look for him, after they’d found the body of the real therapist hidden upstairs. After John had looked Sherlock haltingly in the eye and told him that his brother had been lying). Enjoying himself, more than he should – enjoying saying something _witty,_ and having Sherlock there, right there, to carry it on. 

Ashamed to admit how much he had missed it; how much he had almost broken it.

‘I…’ he chokes on a sudden laugh, turning the cheque over as though expecting to see a clever witticism scribbled on the back, _fooled you!_ or an anatomically-correct sketch of a penis, or – something. ‘Really?’

‘£65,’ Sherlock arches an eyebrow. ‘Per hour, which was your preference. Confident of her. The original therapist only charged £45.’

‘Must have changed the prices on her website,’ John muses, ‘can’t be cheap, sneaking backwards and forwards to the mainland like that.’

‘Hm,’ Sherlock raises an eyebrow; he smells of sea-air and wind and places far beyond here, places beyond the realm of London where John has no wish to go, certainly not again. Has no wish for Sherlock to go, either, if he’s honest with himself and brutally so – but that’s not his choice to make.

The best thing he can do – the _only_ thing he can do, really – is to be here when he returns.

‘Thanks for this,’ he waves the cheque around. ‘Nursery’s certainly not cheap and yeah, that’s a tenner I could do with.’

‘Hm,’ Sherlock repeats; John’s used to that bit. Sherlock is always a little unresponsive when he comes back from Sherrinford; a little withdrawn from the encounter, a little bit thoughtful, a little bit airsick from the helicopter’s abrupt seizures above the stormy seas. It’s always the helicopters. ‘The 83 pence was a little more difficult though. It just – goes on. Like Pi,’ he adds at John’s glance; shrugs. ‘According to a calculator anyway.’

‘Oh, you mean,’ John grins a bit, cottoning on, ‘83333333…’

‘Give or take half a dozen threes,’ Sherlock mutters, standing to attention with his arms behind his back and John chuckles, staring down at the money. Ten pounds and eighty-three pence for being rendered unconscious by Sherlock’s sister.

Probably the least he deserved, he considers, running a finger carelessly over the edge, almost anticipatory of a cut at this point. Cheques and money… they always seem to get them into trouble, don’t they, one way or another; whether it’s with a homicidal Chinese circus, or an ever more homicidal, hidden Holmes.

‘How is she?’ he looks up, curious; doesn’t ask this often, should ask more. ‘Is she alright?’ _Are you alright,_ he dearly wants to ask but holds himself back. Doesn’t feel like his place, somehow, even after all this time; feels like prying, as though he’s treading over already fragile boards that might break altogether with that question, send him sprawling into darker waters.

‘Oh, you know,’ Sherlock looks away, takes great interest in the curtains; almost exactly the same as the old ones, which says a little bit too much about them both. ‘Her Beethoven is brilliant; her Bach is outstanding. Her manner remains silent.’ He smiles, a sad, affectionate thing like the last foams of a tidal wave, pouring across sand. ‘I told her I’d see her again next month, on the second.’

As he does every month; every second day, without fail. Not even clients are allowed in 221b Baker Street on the second day of the month; the door is shut, the sign turned, the blog and website put on hiatus, no matter if it’s an 8 or a 10 or even a great big fat 11. No-one can solve it like Sherlock Holmes can and in the meantime, they’re directed to Scotland Yard or the Diogenes Club if it’s truly urgent (Mycroft’s lies, however well-intentioned, were what got them here in the first place. Legwork or no, he can afford to lend a hand).

‘Something to look forward to,’ John manages, feeling his own lack of understanding seeping from each syllable. Wonders, if Harry had done anything half as catastrophic as Eurus, if he could have forgiven her, gone to see her, to comfort her like Sherlock comforts his own sibling. Catastrophe seems to mean nothing to the Watson family, not when one compares leaving a wife in a drunken state to murdering several people in a bid to get your brother’s attention.

He parses the cheque again; taps his finger, thinks. Glances back at Sherlock, gives him the space he needs of a moment to get back into his surroundings, the familiarity of 221b and of home. John clicks his tongue; checks his phone; looks at the clock.

‘Are you hungry?’ he asks; Sherlock glances around, looking vaguely interested. ‘Only, my bank’s still open. I want to cash this cheque right away.’

Sherlock nods. ‘Seems sensible.’

‘And I want to use the money and take you out for some chips,’ John adds. ‘You…up for that? Molly’s taken Rosie for tea, so we’ve got a bit of time. We can pick her up afterwards, if you like.’ He holds the cheque like a lifeline, remembers staring at the numbers leaving his bank-account, shoving the money at an imposter blindly, too preoccupied with speaking to the shadow of his dead wife in the grey of the morning, looking for her in the bottom of a whiskey glass at night.

It’s a nice day outside in London and Sherlock Holmes gets slightly airsick in helicopters. A walk in the sun would be good. And chips.

Sherlock does that thing – that not-looking-him-in-the-eye thing, mumbling something that’s too shy to be assent entire.

‘Yes?’ John pushes gently, strangely patient; really, you have to be when your best friend’s just been visiting his mad sister. ‘Fancy some…battered cod, maybe?’

Nobody in this world could form a literal pair of heart-eyes, but Sherlock Holmes comes close. _‘Yeeeesss,’_ he purrs, the proverbial cat who’s got the cod and John grins, wandering over to him, rendering it safe enough now to step into his vicinity. Sherlock’s hair is slightly flat, a result of the strong winds out there, his collar a little crumpled, presumably from the violin on his shoulder. John reaches out to correct it, carefully; only able to imagine too well the vision of two clever siblings with a glass screen between them (honestly, he still has no idea how Eurus managed to do half the things she did) able to play but unable to touch and he gathers Sherlock into his arms; cradles the crown of his head; strokes his hair with his palm, holds on to him for a minute.

(Wishes, more often than he’d like, that he could hold on to him every time Sherlock has to leave him and Rosie to head across the sea, yet another indicator – as if his recent behaviour hasn’t been enough – of his own selfishness. It runs deeper, far deeper than he thought; deep as the ocean that Sherlock flies across for miles, nauseous and lightheaded and _determined,_ to visit and play with and engage his little sister).

‘Come on,’ he tugs at Sherlock’s hand; Sherlock is smiling at him, his face a little rosier, a little healthier, a little less tired. John decidedly does not comment on that; claps him on the shoulder instead. ‘Put your coat back on. I’m buying.’

*


End file.
